February 17, 2015

CSM Candidate Summaries: Part 5

After having two subdued and quietly confident null-sec veterans in our previous batch, we start this set of interview summaries with two candidates who are brimming over with fire and enthusiasm for Eve. I thought I was going to manage to get this out before CapStable got to their 5th analysis panel podcast, but those guys are just too fast. Listen in on that as well, particularly for the description on the STV system if you aren't solid on that.

Top Notch Candidates

Ashterothi: (Lore, FW/Lowsec, NPE, Exploration)With CCP rediscovering the Lore and putting out regular videos such as this report from The Scope, it's surprising that Ashterothi is the first CSM candidate we've heard with such an expertise and enthusiasm for the Eve Lore. He makes a great argument for how Eve could leverage the Lore to get more personal involvement with the sandbox by making player actions actually affect the long-neglected framework of the game. This could be the next big breakout for Eve and one that I've blogged about before (ex: Rebellion: Let Players Change New Eden). Ash makes a good argument that this could be a key element of a NPE that results in more player retention as well. Ashterothi's work on the High Drag podcast is largely why I'm in FW right now and with Aideron Robotics. That's both a disclaimer on my own personal interest and a statement about the energy he shares with the community. We've seen other candidates with lots of out of the box ideas for Eve, but they've either come from a place of newbie ignorance of what has gone before, or from a very partisan position. As a long time player, Ashterothi has both the experience and the enthusiasm to come up with out of the box ideas that would actually be well-received by CCP and the player base. (Forum Thread)(Podcast)Chance Ravine: (Marketing Eve, NPE)Having exploded (literally) on the Eve scene under the banner of Wingspan Torpedo Delivery Service, Chance Ravine is now ready to take on the challenge of being a CSM. This is a must-listen interview if nothing else for two analogies he makes on Eve Marketing: the "Lemonade Stand" and the "20 Million Ketchup bottles". IRL Chance is a marketing professional and it shows. At the end of the interview I wasn't sure if I wanted him to be a CSM or if I wanted CCP to just hire this guy and put him on the front lines of their marketing group. I was surprised when Chance named Suzi RC Mudstone as the "one person to be elected with me" - his rationale did more to raise my opinion of RC Mudstone than the entire Mudstone interview - but then it makes me wonder about Chance's judgment and political nous in putting that out there. My other concerns would be his overall experience with the game, but if you're going to put one "real newbie" candidate on your ballot then Chance is your man. (Forum Thread)(Podcast)

Interesting Candidates Worthy of Your Consideration

Gorski Car: (Solo, Small Gang, WH/Thera)CSM Incumbent. Gorski is known foremost as a solo pvper, and right off the bat that's something that I haven't seen in anyone else. As readers may know, Gorski is technically an incumbent, but he only came in after Major JSilva resigned in October. There is some disagreement over his level of engagement (such as Winter Summit remote attendance) in his forum thread. Gorski's relatively chill and distant attitude makes it a bit hard for me to get excited about him, but I do like that he's representing a style that I'm not seeing elsewhere and that I have a lot of respect for. But I must say that this is barely keeping him in this middle tier for me. If you're about solo, or a fan of his in general, then I could see Gorski having a spot on your ticket. (Forum Thread)(Podcast)Migui X'hyrrn: (Null/TEST, Spanish, Lore)Like with Borat Guereen it is a nice bonus to have a CSM that can represent a non-English-speaking group. I like his ideas on trying to tie the Lore in with the gameplay, but he's pretty clearly behind Ashterothi on that front. These last few interviews have really been reinforcing for me the weakness of generalists over experts, but more on that in my final ballot recommendation blog post when this is all over. I don't know enough about null to speak on his opinions on null rebalance, but his push for top-down alliance income seems out of line of a lot of the meta I've heard for bottom-up where having your corp members succeed makes your corp/alliance succeed. Looking over his Eve-forum thread he has a lot of topics in there that he didn't cover in the interview, so there is potentially a lot to like in there - speaking generally it looks like he covers all of Klapen's ideas for instance (see blow). If you're a Spanish-speaking player, then his platform on lack of Spanish translation and community is a clear win. (Forum Thread)(Podcast)DonmanarK: (Communiation, Nullsec)My take on his strength is his theme of communication and a high level of networking. This comes from his nature as a generallist on playstyles with characters in null, faction war, and highsec. On more specific issues he has an interesting take for nullsov as "hard to take sov, easy to lose sov you aren't using" with NPC pirates as mechanism to take sov back from passive groups via an incursion-like mechanic. His ideas on pirates not being able to dock in highsec will certainly be controversial, and his comments in the interview point out that he's not terribly conversant about lowsec. If you're interested in a new-ideas kind of candidate then check out this interview and his forum for your own take on his ideas. It's hard to see CSM as needing another high communicator compared to incumbents like Sugar Kyle and Mike Azariah, and he seems to be out-specialized by candidates in other areas - heck, he says "I'm not #1 on my own card [ballot]" - but I think some readers may find him an interesting candidate to consider. (Forum Thread)(Podcast)

Nothing To See Here, Move Along

Klapen: (Nerf Ishtars, Hats, Small Gang, Lowsec)So it's never a good thing when early in the interview you're asked to confirm that you're not a joke candidate. The keyword line I've put next to Klapen's name above will give you a hint why. He definitely fits in the "features and ideas" candidate box and confirmed as such when asked directly, but I don't think he follows the CSM meta enough to know why people think that might not be a good thing. But if he really was more about Ideas, I'd expect to see some to back up his running points on his thread, and there isn't anything there really other than a commonly repeated set of concepts about abandoned POSes. It doesn't help that he also speaks out about intra-corp aggression mechanic in Tiamat and gets it wrong. Maybe he's enthusiastic about Eve, but I can't see anything about this candidacy that would recommend it over 14 other runners for any playstyle or group. (Forum Thread)(Podcast)

1 comment:

I'm glad you thought the STV discussion was helpful. Apart from having so many candidates, understanding how the single transferable vote works has to be the most confusing part of the whole election process.

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